215 Media Activists Protest Assault on Journalist in Parliament

215 journalists and media activists wrote a letter to Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, demanding an investigation into the "insult" and "physical assault" by Nader Qazizadeh, the representative of Urmia, against Ehsan Badaghi, a parliamentary journalist for the Iran newspaper. According to a report from the Shargh newspaper on Tuesday, September 8, these journalists strongly condemned the "insult" and "physical assault" by the Urmia representative and requested the Speaker to address this "great disrespect to the field of journalism" in a "thorough and swift" manner. The Iran newspaper reported that on Sunday, after a question from the parliamentary journalist regarding the formation of an "Azeri Language Faction in Parliament," Nader Qazizadeh perceived this question as an objection to the formation of this faction and, in addition to using abusive language, physically assaulted the journalist. An audio file of the conversation between the Iran journalist and Mr. Qazizadeh has been published on several Iranian news websites, and the Shargh newspaper has also published details of this conversation. According to the audio file and the Shargh report, Mr. Qazizadeh referred to the Iran-Iraq war and told the Iran journalist, "You cannot defend your honor. We defended our honor. During the war... our women sold their gold." This statement led to the Iran journalist's objection, who asked Mr. Qazizadeh, "Was this only done in Azerbaijan? Wasn't this done in Kerman, Shiraz, and other cities?" The Urmia representative continued his remarks by calling Azerbaijan the "center of Islam" and told Mr. Badaghi, "You were seeking reforms and freedom; you are anti-Islam; the founders of Shiism in Iran are the Safavids and the Azerbaijanis." Ehsan Badaghi, the Iran journalist, also told Mr. Qazizadeh that the Safavids were "the founders of Sufism, not Shiism." According to the letter from these 215 journalists, after this discussion, Mr. Qazizadeh "became angry" and "punched the face of the Iran journalist with left and right fists, twisted his hand, and dragged his recording device towards the Parliament's security." The authors of this letter stated that the Parliament's security also, "in an unbelievable action," took a commitment from the Iran journalist not to create further conflicts and deleted all recorded files from his recording device. According to ISNA news agency, Gholamali Jafarzadeh, a representative from Rasht, described this altercation, saying, "At one moment, I saw my good and polite friend Mr. Badaghi being slammed against the cabinets by our colleague Mr. Qazizadeh... and the pleas Mr. Badaghi made to be freed from the powerful hands of our Azeri-speaking colleague." Abbasali Kadkhodai, the spokesman for the Guardian Council, and Mohammad Reza Aref, the head of the Hope faction in Parliament, criticized the actions of the Urmia representative. Meanwhile, these 215 journalists concluded their letter to the Speaker by writing, "There is a fear that a representative who said yesterday that Parliament is not a place for donkeys and women and today punches a journalist may tomorrow wield a knife in the Parliament's public session." In March of last year, a video of Nader Qazizadeh's remarks at the celebration of his election as the representative of Urmia in the 10th Parliament was released, where he stated, "Parliament is not a place for women; it is a place for men [send women to Parliament] so that they bring disgrace upon you." Mr. Qazizadeh also said, "Parliament is not a place for sissiness; send men to Parliament, at least let one do the work that the other cannot do." After the release of this video, some users on social media called for the rejection of Mr. Qazizadeh's credentials, but his credentials were approved. In recent parliamentary sessions, reports have emerged regarding threats, insults, and physical confrontations by some representatives, including Mehdi Koochakzadeh, Rouhollah Hosseinian, and Mousa Ghorbani against parliamentary journalists. Following the protests against the 2009 presidential elections, several parliamentary journalists were arrested and prevented from continuing their work in Parliament.